


The Weight of Himself

by sarkywoman



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: M/M, Paralysis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22328824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarkywoman/pseuds/sarkywoman
Summary: If he could, Diego would unfurl his middle finger.For the 'can only move the eyes' square at badthingshappenbingo. Reginald's experiments have devastating consequences on Diego, but both he and Klaus refuse to let that be the end.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 25
Kudos: 112
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	The Weight of Himself

**Author's Note:**

> No age specified for Klaus and Diego because I figure very late teens but haven't really thought about it too much. It's set before they leave the house which for Diego is 17 in canon, but I've deviated from canon enough here that I don't think that applies anymore, so I'd say 17-19? It doesn't really matter to me, just mentioning it in case it matters to you!

When Diego first wakes up he can’t breathe. He’s in the lab. He tries to move but his limbs don’t respond. Everything feels heavy. The blanket on his body will suffocate him. He can’t lift it. He can’t move. He screams…

...no sound comes out. 

He tries to scream again, wanting to get the attention of someone. Anyone. Mom, Klaus, even Luther.

He’s not sure if he imagines the squeak of his voice. 

There’s a beeping nearby but he can’t see what it is. 

Diego closes his eyes.

*

“Well we have seen higher brain function in the scan.” Pogo’s voice is nearby. “It’s just that when he wakes there has been little movement. And no indication that he registers our presence.”

“Disappointing.”

Opening his eyes, Diego sees his father stood at the end of the bed. His shadow blocks out most of the light from the window. It’s the same silhouette Diego recalls from inside the tank, where it was distorted by the water. That distortion had been the only movement he’d seen in the man while Diego had thrashed inside the clear case without oxygen or escape. 

If he could, Diego would unfurl his middle finger. But his energy seems limited. He feels lifeless.

Maybe he’s dead.

“Well?” His father barks. “Can you speak?”

Even if he could, he wouldn’t.

Not for him. 

His father makes a _tch_ sound of disapproval and strides out of the room. Diego doesn’t strain to watch him leave.

*

It occurs to Diego that he’s been awake for a little while, actually. Self-aware consciousness has just been a little slow to catch up to him in the warmly lit room with his mom’s voice humming pleasantly close by. 

Movement still isn’t possible, he finds, when he tries to turn his head towards the sound. He moves his eyes. They’re sore. Dry? 

But still it’s worth it to see his mom’s reassuring presence. She’s folding clothes in the drawers by his bed. As she stands gracefully she turns and stops when she sees him staring. Her smile makes him feel better. 

“Hello again, sleepyhead.” She walks over and smoothes her hand over his cheek. “Are you feeling better?”

His lower lip moves. It feels like accidentally lifting a huge weight and all his energy is suddenly gone. He can’t even muster the strength to speak.

Mom’s smile is a little weaker this time. “Well there’s no hurry,” she soothes, stroking his hair. “You take all the time you need. We’ll be here.”

She kisses his forehead. 

He wants to be here too. 

*

It’s dark and Diego isn’t sure what has woken him at first.

A pressure on his chest. A sound. 

Crying?

Straining his eyes to look down as far as they can, he sees a shadow that gradually makes sense to him as a cloud of curls pressed to his middle.

Klaus is home. 

And he’s sobbing his heart out.

Diego wants so badly to reassure him, but his voice doesn’t rise through his throat. 

When Klaus finally sits up, his dark eye make-up is streaked down his pale cheeks that shine in the moonlight coming through the window. He’s the most tragic and beautiful thing Diego has ever seen. Klaus’ eyes widen when he sees Diego. 

“Dee?” His fingers go delicately to Diego’s left cheek, mirroring Mom’s caress of the right one. “Can you hear me?”

He can’t speak but Klaus will panic, so Diego looks down and up a couple of times. A makeshift nod. 

“Oh god,” Klaus says, sounding broken rather than comforted. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, I’m so, so sorry. Luther says it was an accident but Vanya says dad did it and I’m gonna _kill_ the bastard I swear...”

Quickly Diego moves his eyes side to side in a negative reaction. He doesn’t want Klaus to endanger himself. Not while he can’t protect him. 

“Come on,” Klaus huffs. “He fucking paralyses you and you’re defending him?”

Paralysed.

Yeah, he supposes he is. 

Funny, he hasn’t really thought about that yet. 

“Hey… hey.” Klaus pets his cheek again. “It’s gonna be okay. It is. Mom says you’re doing better every day.”

How long has it been? It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.

“I can’t believe he left you in there,” Klaus says, tearing up again and wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. “It’s so much worse than the mausoleum. He was ready to watch you _die_ …” He grabs Diego’s hand between his and squeezes. “When you’re better we’re getting out of here. I’ll go with you. Like you wanted?”

His eyes nod. 

Klaus lays back down and curls up around him, careful of wires and tubes that Diego is only now registering.

Diego’s fingers curl slightly against the blanket, wishing they were buried in soft, dark hair instead. 

*

“Does that help?”

“It should,” Mom replies to Klaus as she stretches Diego’s leg out then bends it at the knee. “At the very least it’s important to keep him a little mobile so that his limbs don’t atrophy.”

Klaus winces. “That’s a horrible thought.”

“Which is why we do this.”

Their mom is completely unflappable, programmed for relentless optimism. Even so, Diego has seen her smile fade as she’s spoken to him and received not even a stammering response. He wants to apologise to her. And to Klaus. He knows they need more from him.

It isn’t that he isn’t trying. It’s more like his body is disconnected from him. It’s just a big heavy lump around him when he feels it at all. Sometimes he prefers it when its numb. When he can actually feel the weight of himself it feels like it might smother him. He wakes from nightmares where he’s drowning, only to find himself unable to throw off his blankets. 

“He can move his fingers now,” Klaus says, his voice so hopeful Diego could cry, except he can’t even do that.

“Indeed he can. I’ve informed your father.”

“Inform him to go choke on a--”

“Klaus!” Mom scolds. “I understand you’re upset, but your father is a great man.”

“A great man doesn’t do this to their children,” Klaus says with a scowl. He pulls a cigarette from his pocket and their mom _tsks_.

“No smoking around Diego. He needs a healthy environment to recover.”

“I can open a window.”

She shakes her head. “No, Klaus. You know you’re not supposed to smoke in the house.”

With a sigh, Klaus gets up and stretches, which for a moment fills Diego with envy. What he wouldn’t give for the satisfaction of reaching his arms up high above his head until his muscles strained. 

“When we’re free of this house I’ll smoke all I want.”

Mom just smiles. “I think Diego would have something to say about that.”

“Maybe he will. He’s gonna get better.”

“Of course he will, dear,” Mom says with a bright smile. 

The smile fades after Klaus leaves and she continues to move Diego this way and that.

But after she’s gone he finds he can wiggle his toes.

*

Klaus sneaks into Diego’s room most nights now. Talks to him quietly in the dark.

“I know it upset you, when I said no. I don’t even know why I did. We’re old enough to make our way in the world, god knows Allison’s doing fine. I spoke to her the other day, did I tell you?”

He did, he recounted the whole thing at the time. But Diego can’t say so, so Klaus tells him all over again about Allison’s little apartment, about the guy she’s met, about the audition she had. 

“We should have left then. I know you only stayed because of me. I think I was just… I don’t know, I don’t know what I’d do out there, Dee. I don’t know what either of us would do. A junkie ghost whisperer and a paralysed knife thrower. Okay, so you weren’t paralysed then. But still. What would we do?”

Get jobs, Diego thinks. Just crappy little jobs that pay enough to get a tiny place to rent between them. Be free. Be in love. Figure out the rest as they go. 

Even if he could say it he wouldn’t. Embarrassment had kept words like that inside the last time he had asked Klaus to leave with him. It had been mortifying enough when Klaus said no to the more objective plea, if he’d had his whole heart’s truth rejected it would have killed him. As it was, he had decided that any love between them had been imagined on his part and had barely spoken to Klaus between then and now, when he can’t seem to speak at all.

“We’ll have to figure something out,” Klaus says through a yawn. “We can’t stay here. Not after what he did to you.”

After what he did to Diego. Weeks in a mausoleum had nearly destroyed Klaus at one point, but it’s this that proves to be his breaking point. Diego’s heart swells with emotion that bubbles up into a whisper. 

“Klaus...”

The response is a gentle snore.

Diego strains to move just one arm. Gradually, like he is dragging a huge weight, it brushes up the softness of Klaus’ robe until it’s draped over him. Like a hug.

In the morning Klaus wakes to sneak back to his own room. He notices the one-armed hug and, after a moment of confusion, smiles at Diego like it’s a gift on Christmas morning and plants a kiss on his lips.

*

The shouting outside Diego’s room wakes him. His body still feels like a lead weight, but at least now he can find a little strength to try and push against the lethargy. 

“--your foolish, degenerate desires are not worth this disobedience, Number Four! You will join Number One and Number Six on their mission and stop this infantile rebellion!”

“I won’t! I won’t go on the mission and I won’t let you keep us here!”

“Number Two is receiving the best possible care. Better than any _you_ can provide!”

Diego’s breath gusts out of him in a scoff. None of their father’s machines have done shit for him, as far as he can tell. Every scrap of recovery has been won painstakingly from Klaus’ desperation and Diego being unable to bear causing another one of those tears. 

He’s breathing hard as he manages slowly to wriggle his arms. It’s a familiar exercise at this point, seeing how much he can push himself up from the bed, but today he’s going for gold. He’s going to sit up without assistance. He’s going to be ready if Klaus needs him. Klaus sounds tearful, for all his rage.

“You don’t provide any care! You don’t care! You can’t care! Mom cares more than you and she’s literally a robot!”

“Sentiment does not save the world, Number Four.”

“Who cares about the world?! I wanna save Diego!”

Such a loving assertion shouldn’t come as a surprise, but Diego falls flat on his back from it anyway. His softhearted Klaus. He never should have doubted he cared.

His arms are tired now from the exertion and Diego lays there staring at the ceiling, trying to find the energy to try again.

“Insolence such as this will be punished! While you live under my roof--”

“We’re not going to live under your roof! Me and Diego are going away, far away, where you can’t hurt us anymore!”

“Impossible. Number Two is incapable of travel and is unlikely to recover.”

Spite alone makes Diego take a deep breath and start flexing his toes, trying to remind his body how to move. He’s just got to get it going, then he can ride the momentum. 

“That’s not true! He’s getting better, no thanks to you!”

“ _If_ he recovers he will be joining his brothers on missions of great importance, not gallivanting around with you.”

“Not true! He’s the one who wanted to run away in the first place! I’m the idiot who stayed and it’s the biggest mistake I ever fucking made! I’m taking Diego and we’re leaving! He’s going to get better and we’re going to have real lives!”

Diego can move his arms and control his breathing and even his feet are wiggling a bit now, but trying to lift his weight is proving impossible. He’s like a turtle stuck on his back. 

“Number One, take Number Four to the mausoleum outside.”

“No! Luther, don’t! No! Get your hands off me!”

“Klaus, stop making it worse, come on.”

For a moment fury runs through Diego like adrenaline. He surges to his side, propelling himself off of the bed. The feeling of victory is knocked out of him along with his breath when he hits the floor. He had hoped to at least get onto hands and knees, but he seems to have used every ounce of energy.

The floor is cold. He’s fallen so that his body is flat out, belly-down, but thankfully not face-down, which probably would have broken his nose. He’s facing sideways under his bed, staring into the dark and looking at dust and cobwebs and his knife stash. He’ll be here until someone comes to check on him.

“LET ME GO!” Klaus screams downstairs. 

“You will remain in the mausoleum until such a time as you have outgrown this ridiculous tendency towards the theatrical. If it takes months, you will stay there for months. I have been lenient enough, one could almost say permissive, and clearly it has done you no good. Once you have calmed and can behave like a member of this Academy you will be released. Not before.”

“Luther, put me DOWN!”

Diego drags his arm along the dusty floor under the bed. It’s like trying to move underwater. 

Bad thought. Very bad thought. His heart races at the memory of drowning, at trying to punch his way free of a glass case and moving too slowly to make a dent. He had been unable to save himself.

He will not fail to save Klaus. Months in a mausoleum… what would that do to him? Two weeks had nearly killed him, had left him a shell of himself for a month or so. Even now Klaus rarely sleeps through the night from the terror of it all.

Diego’s fingers brush the latch of the box and his coordination is such that it takes a few clumsy fumbles before he can get it open. The effort it takes is astounding. When the box springs open, his hand and arm fall flat again, exhausted. 

“Ow! Klaus, stop!”

“Number Four, I will authorise your brother to use any force necessary to restrain you! This resistance to discipline does you no favours, you are simply increasing the length of your stay in solitary confinement!”

“Let me go! Diego!”

There is a crash from downstairs. It startles some energy into Diego’s limbs and he lifts his arm, flops it into the box. His fingers move vaguely over the knives. A thumb manages to pry one up, a ring finger slides another into place. He takes a deep breath. 

The loudest sound he has made since his injury comes from deep in his chest as he twists, shoulders first. The motion brings his arm out from under his bed. It’s mostly limp but he holds onto the knives as the momentum flings his arm and then he lets go. The blades sail through the open doorway of his bedroom. 

His knives have never needed strength behind them. It isn’t a skill. It’s a power. 

For a moment Diego hopes to god this isn’t one more thing Reginald has taken from him.

Then Luther screams out in pain.

Their mother says, “oh my.”

Pogo shouts their father’s name. 

Over the sound of Luther shouting in incoherent agony, Diego hears footsteps scramble up the stairs. 

Klaus bursts into the room with a split lip and a cut by his bruising eye and falls on his knees beside him, embraces him and presses kisses to his face. “My hero.”

Diego tries to reach for him, but can only curl his fingers. Klaus sees and lifts the tired hand to his lips and kisses it. 

“I’m getting you out of here, Dee.”

It takes great effort for Klaus with his skinny arms and malnourished frame to tug Diego upright, but he’s determined. He manages to get him sort of to his feet before he needs to put him on the bed, breathing heavily from the exertion. “Okay, so...”

“Go,” Diego whispers. It’s not safe for Klaus to stay. Not now. Not if Diego’s knives hit their mark. 

“Not without you.” Klaus gnaws nervously at one of his bitten-down black-painted nails as he tries to come up with a way to escape. 

Ben clears his throat by the door. “I got the wheelchair from the medical room.”

“Benji?!” Klaus claps his hands together with a squeal. “You’re running away with us?”

“No. Just as far as the car.” He looks at Diego. “You cut Luther’s leg open. You stabbed… dad might die.”

“Good,” Klaus snarls as he stomps forward and grabs the wheelchair. Ben joins him and together they shift Diego’s weight into the chair. “You should come with us, Ben.”

But Ben still shakes his head, though he makes good on his word to help them down to the car. Getting the wheelchair down the stairs without toppling Diego takes all of their strength between them and once or twice Diego fears that Ben will manifest the Horror in his strain.

Once more, Klaus asks Ben if he’ll go with them. Diego watches from the passenger seat as they hug, then Klaus rushes into the driver’s seat and starts the engine.

As they roar out of the garage and down the road, Diego has a thought.

_Klaus can’t drive._

The sudden fear tenses his legs, muscles that he had almost forgotten about trying to rouse from their coma. 

He manages to roll his head to the side, to look at Klaus who is paying valiant attention to the road and the car and other vehicles. Beautifully fierce and determined as he rambles about physiotherapy and ways to get money.

Despite everything, Diego relaxes. Between them, they can make things better. And when Klaus smiles at him briefly and takes his hand, Diego squeezes with his full strength. 

At this rate he’ll be able to say three little words soon enough.


End file.
